Moxi ( Motorola BMC90xx ) Q&A and Discussion Thread - Page 403

Tom,

I am not certain, but as far as I know you must use Direct TV's DVR. From what I understand lots of companies used to make boxes that worked on their dishes, but I am fairly certain that now the boxes have to come from them (though I certainly could be wrong).

As far as buying a MOXI directly I never really considered that option since as much as I enjoyed the use of the MOXIs I know of WAY too many failures from reading these boards and from personal experience of going through several just in a 2-3 year period. Possibly the consumer boxes are more reliable, but it wasn't worth the expense to me to chance it.

Good luck

UVa Wahoo,

What do you think just happened last week? You guessed it: my Moxi finally died, after five years of service.

Charter brought a replacement unit---a Motorola DCX 3400 or "Moto"---which I've decided to try out for a few months before deciding whether to purchase my own Moxi or something else.

When I told the Charter tech that I had used the Moxi for five years without any trouble, he was absolutely agog! He said they used to replace Moxi units after only 5 or 6 months usage (on average), but for some time they had been replacing dead Moxis with newer Motorola models. Apparently, I was an exceedingly fortunate Moxi user for five years!

We'll see how the DCX 3400 works out. So far, I like it's functioning very much. I especially like the fact that it has onboard recording storage of 320 gig, which is four times that of the Moxi 9012 (The newest Moxi for purchase advertises 500 gig onboard storage capacity).

Anyway, I guess I should consider myself lucky that I had a working Moxi as long as I did. If the the Moto continues to perform well, I may keep renting it...if not, I'll start looking at other options (though I don't want to get stuck with a $500-$600 Moxi that dies on me!). Time will tell on the Moto.


Tom

Tom,

I had the MOXI 9012 until it died on 9-11-10. I had it from either June 2003 or June 2004 until 9-11-10. Then I got the Motorola DCX3400 on 9-13-10. I have to say the DCX3400 is a good unit with a 320 GB hard drive, but I miss the MOXI SuperTicker for Entertainment News and other News. On the AVS Forum there is a thread for the DCX3400.

Jed

Tom, I am in the same market as you (on my third MOXI since 2004). Two questions...1) Is the eSATA port on the Charter DCX 3400 enabled and 2) Does Charter have to dispatch a tech to the house to install it (like the MOXI)? Thanks

Hi CheckJV,

If I may, I'll respond to your second question at the outset: Yes, a Charter tech brought the Moto to my house and set it up.

Now to your first question: I take it that you want to use the eSATA port on the DCX3400 to connect an outboard hard drive for additional storage (?). I didn't ask the Charter rep specifically about that issue, since I anticipated that the 320 gig capacity onboard the 3400 would be fine for my needs.

However, from what I can gather, the news is not favorable if you are looking to connect a hard drive to the DVR. Here is a link to the "Help Video" page on the Charter website: http://www.myaccount.charter.com/cus...enuitem=54#top .

There is a video on this page which indicates (I paraphrase) that additional storage capacity via external drive is not supported at this time and that Charter has no current plans to make that feature available. The reason given was that their research showed that the onboard storage provided was sufficient for most customers. You can scroll down the page to find the video I referenced, which is entitled "TV Help Motorola DVR". This video is the same one the Charter Tech played for me while he was setting up the DVR. The specific question about external hard drive and extra storage is answered within a segment called FAQ, approximately 75%-80% deep into the video runtime.

Hope this helps.


Tom

Hello Tom,

Thanks for your quick and complete reply. I have a 320GB USB drive attached to my 80GB MOXI now and the storage capacity is sufficient so I agree that the 320GB Moto should meet my requirements. It's always nice to be able to add more space so too bad about unsupported external storage on the Charter unit. I hope to keep my current MOXI alive for a while but at least the Moto 3400 looks like decent option when my MOXI kicks the bucket. Thanks again --CheckJV

I have had a moxi for several years now and finally got around to attaching an external drive (yeah, I know - should have done this a LONG time ago!)

My drive seems to randomly disconnect though, and I'm not sure why.
I have a Seagate FreeAgent GO 320G drive attached to the back USB port. It connects fine and appears to be using the drive with no issues - except for disconnecting every few hours.

I have disabled the sleep setting on the drive (sleep NEVER setting).

It may be the moxi itself -- periodically the remote stops responding (but the front-panel buttons still work). My remote works fine with my stereo, xbox, etc. and the batteries are fully charged. Unplugging the moxi and rebooting seems to correct it for a while...

Any ideas?

I've been using Moxi for years. I used to have random problems with different external drives and one day just decided to go with the "official" Western Digital DVR expander. It's a 1TB drive that's officially supported by TIVO and since I've been using only those, I've never had ANY problems. Just my opinion mind you, but worth every cent to me.

Folks,
A couple weeks ago, after one of my Moxi boxes died I tried to replace it with another Moxi. But after waiting all morning for a service appointment, the installer called to tell me that that monday a letter came down from corporate to start pulling Moxi boxes out of homes for good. They were even told to remove perfectly good working Moxi boxes from homes too.

Since I still had one good working unit, I told the installer to not bother coming to my home since I wouldn;t allow him to remove my working Moxi.

I guess I'll just have to move my business to DirecTV!!

P.S. Charter anounced in late January that they expect to release a TiVo based DVR later this year.

I just had a service guy because of the channels missing on my moxi, it is a SDV issue. After reading on DSL reports about what channels are missing I decided to keep my box for now. The service person did not try to take my box. As a matter of fact he has one, though it is the newer black one. I am in the St Louis area.

I had a service tech come out yesterday to look at my moxi 9022, which was in pretty bad shape (spontaneous reboots, the remote intermittently stopped working for the moxi only - worked fine for my other components, lockups & pixellation, loud pops & crackling on the analog channels, external drive constantly disconnecting, etc).

He replaced it with a Motorola DCX3501-M. It's supposedly more stable, it's got a bigger hard drive (500G), it's got HDMI outputs, etc.

It also has a REALLY crappy user interface, no external hard drives allowed, the Mate cannot pause/rewind live TV or record shows any more, etc. Oh, and charter is hitting me an extra $5/month over the moxi rate./

All in all, my opinion so far is that it's a major usability step backwards from what Digeo gave us all the way back in 2006. I'm not happy.

That is why even though Moxi has a problem with SDV I am sticking with it for as long as the unit runs. I baby that thing.

The Tivo news is good. It at least appears that Charter is attempting to change with the times as they are alluding to Internet features in the new TIVO.
However, my fifth Moxi died this week. Charter came out the same day and replaced it, with what the tech said is, the last Moxi I will get. I have recently purchased a 2nd generation Apple TV and Roku. I am learning a new way to watch TV. As it stands, the only thing Charter has to offer me that I care about is local HD channels and the Moxi. Theoretically I can get my local HD channels with an antenna. When this Moxi dies, I am going to ask for the new TIVO and a HD channels only package. I am willing to pay $40 a month for that. If they say no I will be saying good bye to Cable TV.

I'm a holdover user of the old Moxi BMC9022, as I like having a full functioning secondary box (Mate) that allows for pause/rewind of live TV plus recording. I also like having one central hard drive for the whole house, as I have a Slingbox Pro-HD hooked up to it. Just curious how many other BMC9022 users there still are.

I don't know if anyone can help me out or not but I am having issues with my old Moxi DVR. I am renting it from Newwave Communications and my guide won't populate and the external hard drive option has disappeared. I called them and they sent signals and nothing has worked. Has anyone had these issues before? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

If anyone in the St. Louis area is in need of a MoxiMate box let me know. The mate will work as a secondary receiver on the Moxi 9022 box. You can have more than one mate hooked up to the system, but only one can be plugged in/powered on at a time.

I should have the power supply and remote to go with it.

Price is free if you want to pick it up. Let me know.

I might be interested. You sure only one Mate can be powered up at any one time? I already have one Mate hooked up, but could I use this on another TV in my house, and just use one or the other but not both at the same time?

It's been a while, but from what I remember you would actually unplug one mate when using the other mate. Not that big of a deal to get the functionality of the extra box.

Let me know, if you want it, it's yours.

My Moxi died this past Monday (burned-up components inside). Now I have a Motorola DCX3501-M.

That's why I keep a little fan blowing 24/7 at the back end of the box. But eventually I'll probably loose the box like you.

Well I think I have finally made the decision to give up on Moxi and get the alternate box available. I have lived with the Moxi's overheating and dying time and time again. Living with the deterioration of the picture over time. The freezing, the pixilating etc.
My external hard drive bit the dust last week after several good years of service. The hard drive I replaced it with pauses and starts. If it pauses too long the Moxi will reboot. So rather than try and find a compatible hard drive I am just going to switch over to the other box, what ever that is, in the Medford Oregon area. My one question before I pull the trigger is what is the HD capacity of the other box? If it is 320GB + it will serve my needs. Thanks

I have optimum/cablevision and i am having issues receiving some channels up in the 700 like stated above. I had the issue before when i wasn't using the tuner adapter because i wanted the 3 tuners. I have an mcard and a tuning adapter that got the update for the three tuners but certain channels aren't coming in. It says i don't subscribe to the channel. What am i doing wrong. Do i have to call cablevision or moxi? Thanks